Captains for Clean Water took them out on a boat to collect samples of water. They’ll be comparing samples from upstream of the Caloosahatchee River to ones from water along the coast where red tide has its chokehold.

“What we want to know is if the water here, the ‘signal’ from here, is the same or different than where the red tide is occurring,” said Dr. Bill Mitsch, an FGCU professor spearheading the research.

That would help indicate whether or not water releases from Lake Okeechobee are actually what’s worsening the naturally occurring red tide. Excessive nutrients, like nitrogen combining with the red tide, may be the culprit, Mitsch said. He explained it as a “booster shot” type phenomenon.

“My biggest argument is common sense,” he said. “This river is sending billions and billions of gallons of Lake O water downstream to the estuary and that’s got to have some effect.”

Mitsch also argues that the solution isn’t where to store or send excess Lake O water, it’s fixing what’s in it too.

“We need 50,000, 100,000 acres of wetlands down here to protect the water before it goes to the Everglades," he said.

In doing so, it would require taking back land from farmers south of the lake and restoring the wetlands to their natural state, filtering water that would flow south.

“That’s one thing the agriculture community’s not going to budge on,” he said. “They don’t want to give up a square foot.”

The water samples will head off to the University of California at Davis for testing. Mitsch said it could take a few months to get the results.